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In cases like Schum's, where a family did agree to donate a body part, Hess sold more than she had permission to. The Bailey-Kent Funeral Home was the only option given to her for cremation under a certain weight, she said. Read on to see why: At a glance, the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home appeared to be a business helping locals through the loss of their loved ones. heres a recap of our months top stories, Carriage Services reports Services and Revenue drops in 2022. She said, No, no, well take care of that first thing in the morning, recalled Eberspacher. Colorado regulators have shut down the funeral home. The Green Funeral. and Cavanagh, Reh had an immensely difficult time reaching the Kents, the phone ringing unanswered for weeks. The indictment accuses Kent of allowing his wife to go out to death scenes as a deputy coroner, even though she took no oath and an appointment had not been filed with the county clerk, as required by law. Details uncovered in the FBI investigation were shared with her. Hess continues running a dual operation. Its for the good of the world, and I like to help people, Hess said. Two Colorado funeral homes are under criminal investigation after authorities found a unrefrigerated body and learned that at least one family had received a stillborn's cremains mixed. Twenty-six victims described their horror at discovering what had happened to their loved ones. It comes on the heels of a law passed in 2020 that. No one returned her voicemails. On Oct. 2, the Lake and Eagle county sheriffs departments executed a search warrant at the Bailey-Kent Funeral Home in Leadville, where deputies encountered a strong odor of decomposition, according to an Oct. 13 summary suspension issued by the states Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration, before finding: In addition to the Leadville funeral home, the state issued suspension orders for the Kent Funeral Home Gypsum. In an interview in 2016, she described Donor Services as a small, family business. A Colorado funeral home operator who was accused of selling and stealing body parts pleaded guilty to mail fraud on Tuesday, the US justice department . His two shoulders went somewhere else. This content was originally published here. Reuters identified 34 body brokers that have been active across the United States during the past five years. It is the only state in the country that does not license funeral home and. "It's concerning to the court that defendant Hess refuses to assume any responsibility for her conduct.". I see his body parts floating in space and I keep trying to grab them and put him back and I can't! Prosecutors recommended a sentence for Hess of 12 to 15 years. some timely learning opportunities for our readers, Dont forget Low-tech to build your brand. GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO: On allegations of fraud and illegally selling body parts, a former owner of a funeral home in Colorado was given a 20-year term in federal prison. Copyright 2019 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Catch up on the days top five stories every weekday afternoon. While operating Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, Hess and Koch sold remains of the deceased for body broker services without family consent and gave families ashes that were. Its really an underground industry that most people dont know about, said attorney Michael Burg. The fact that now the business is also making money from the sale of body parts if that is not being told to the family, it is unethical and probably illegal, if only as deception, said Robert Fells, general counsel of the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association, an industry trade group. It was kinda creepy., It is totally unregulated, said Burg. A price quote Hess sent to an Arizona medical training lab in 2016 offered torsos for $1,000 each. With a population of about 20,000, Montrose is a community surrounded by the beauty of the Rocky Mountains. When Reuters reported earlier this year about the unusual twin businesses of owner Megan Hess, federal agents raided the facility and state regulators ordered the funeral home to be shut down. In 2009, Hess also created a nonprofit called Sunset Mesa Funeral Foundation, d/b/a Donor Services, a body broker service operated out of the same location as SMFD. Paul Hawthorne, Getty Images. Investigation into the allegations are ongoing with the Texas Funeral Services . But no federal law governs the sale of cadavers or body parts for use in research or education. The New York Times, a far-left outlet, admitted in a report that Trump's rollback of a rule from President Barack More by The Associated Press, Got a story tip? Colorado does not regulate body brokers. The Denver attorney is referring to the limited and nonexistent regulation nationwide and worldwide regarding the procurement and selling of bodies and body parts. This comes after a dozen . It described a body broker as a company that acquires dead bodies, dissects them and sells the parts for profit to medical researchers, training organizations and other buyers.. I went through a very bad crisis losing the baby, Cavanagh said. On July 2, Jeffersonville Police officials announced dozens of bodies were found decomposing inside a funeral home in the Southern Indiana city, just across the river from Louisville. The confrontation escalated when Shannon Kent allegedly called Lake County Sheriff Amy Reyes and threatened her with arrest for questioning his wifes decision not to use the body bag, prosecutors said. Hess, along with her mother and father, are all named in a lawsuit, which accuses them of using a backroom to dismember cadavers with a power saw and stack body parts in coolers. Reached by phone at Sunset Mesa, Koch said she did not wish to talk with a Reuters reporter. See here for a complete list of exchanges and delays. She told Contact7 Investigates that she heard bodies being dismembered. Think about it, the FBI came in and raided them, and they raided them because they knew this body broker this was getting bigger and bigger and bigger, said Berg. [the FBI told me] his head was sent to so and so. . A Medical Examiner can often discover hidden evidence of injury to explain a sudden death, or can document natural diseases to show that no foul play was involved in the death. They are struggling with claims she created a product with a power saw and angry that she ultimately profited from the sale of arms, heads legs, torsos even whole bodies. There is also evidence of Donor Services shipping at least 26 boxes containing body parts to various parts of the world in 2016 according to evidence that has been recovered. That means almost anyone, regardless of expertise, can dissect and sell human remains. As you likely know by now, Diamond of the famous 'Diamond and Silk' sister duo, has passed away at the young age of only 51. Both Hess and Koch originally had pleaded not guilty to the charges. A grand jury indictment said that from 2010 through 2018, Hess and Koch offered to cremate bodies and provide the remains to families at a cost of $1,000 or more, but many of the cremations never occurred. The Donor Services brochure was criticized as deceptive by two major U.S. organ donation groups after Reuters shared it with them. At the nursing home, Eberspacher said she reminded Koch that the glass eye was supposed to be returned and suggested it be popped out there. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. At Donor Services, her body parts business, Hess can generate a greater return on the dead, a different price list reviewed by Reuters showed. Reuters began examining the Hess companies more than a year ago as part of the news agencys exploration of the human body trade, a virtually unregulated industry that largely operates in the shadows. After an extensive investigation into this and dozens of similar cases, federal prosecutors on Tuesday charged the owners of the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, Colorado, on suspicion of illegally brokering the body parts of deceased individuals they were hired to cremate. When asked if it contained her husbands cremains, she said, I dont know.. A funeral service will be held on Saturday, March 4th 2023 at 10:30 AM at the First Church of the Nazarene (505 E Beatty Ave, Yuma, CO 80759). Funeral homes are required to register with the state, but spokesman Rasizer said the regulatory affairs department is not authorized to inspect mortuaries. Separate from the FBI inquiry, Reuters has learned that Colorado state funeral regulators are investigating Hesss funeral home, Sunset Mesa. You are looking at how to make money.. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems, said Steve Palmer, a funeral director in Cottonwood, Arizona, and former member of the policy board at the National Funeral Directors Association. With heavy hearts, we announce the death of Arnold Roger Tesnow (Colorado Springs, Colorado), born in Worth, Illinois, who passed away on February 25, 2023 at the age of 78. All they got was the urn and a death certificate no other paperwork. Feb 4, 2023, 5:26 PM SGT. A woman in Colorado has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for illegally selling body parts. The eye was never returned, said Eberspacher and Dunlaps friend, Ron Mabry. But the business arrangement is highly unusual. John Wayne Gacy House: Now. The Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services building in Montrose, Colorado, U.S., December 16, 2017. MONTROSE, Colorado The Federal Bureau of Investigation is interviewing former employees of a funeral home whose owner runs a side business on the same premises selling human body parts. The Lankford Funeral Home and Family Center is under investigation by Jeffersonville Police Detective Division after 31 deceased individuals and the post-cremated remains of 16 individuals. A funeral home in Indiana is under investigation after allegedly falling behind on processing dead bodies for an unknown period of time, but at least a few months. The legislation has support from the state's largest trade association for funeral homes, the Colorado Funeral Directors Association. All rights reserved. In at least dozens of instances, Hess and Koch did not follow family wishes, and neither discussed nor obtained authorization for Donor Services to transfer decedents' bodies or . Legal Statement. E.W. The federal inquiry began several months ago, shortly after Reuters interviewed a half-dozen workers who formerly worked for Hess. MONTROSE, Colo. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. Funeral homes in Leadville and Gypsum are under criminal investigation after authorities this month found an unrefrigerated body, bags of unlabeled cremains, an abandoned stillborn infant and at least one instance in which a family received cremains for their stillborn child mixed with bits of adult body parts and metal fragments. The price list is from an Arizona company shut down after an FBI raid five years ago. On Monday, the family of Ramon Lara Castillo a 63-year-old Nashville house painter who succumbed to liver cancer in October 2020 filed a federal lawsuit against former funeral director Reid Van Ness and the operators of a funeral home in Lewisburg, Tenn. Roommates and friends of Castillo paid Van Ness $1,800 to ship the body home to his . The attorney, Carol Viner, asked Reuters to refrain from contacting Hess employees for any reason.. Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. I told them it didnt make sense, Mabry said. A former Colorado funeral home owner has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on charges of fraud and selling body parts without permission. Did you ever consent to have this family mutilate your husbands body? asked Denver7. The article also tells about how Sunset Mesa Funeral Home handled some services free of charge. According to Reuters Sunset Mesa Funeral Home had seen their call volume increase from 59 in 2015 to 128 in 2017. John Wayne Gacy's house has since been torn down and replaced with a new residence, built on the same land where Gacy reportedly buried many of his victims. ), Windsors Newest Hot Spot is Open and Smells of Glorious Bacon [Photos], The Cheapest Home in Weld County is Selling for Less Than $90K, Local Fort Collins Photographer Wins 3rd Grammy in the Visual Arts, WATCH: This Deleted Scene From The Office Totally Calls Out Colorado, The 2023 Cheyenne Frontier Days Concert Lineup Has Been Announced, This Weeks Larimer Countys Most Wanted: Dallas Rusk, 3 Northern Colorado Districts in Top 10 for Slow Internet Access, New Life Planned for this Beloved Greeley Building, the dark history behind the town's funeral home, READ: This 1993 Steamboat Springs Murder Became One of the Nation's Most Chilling Cases. In another call two months later, Staci Kent responded to a death scene without a body bag, the indictment states, which led to an argument with law enforcement. It is unbelievable, said Dave Teselle, a Denver-based attorney who represents Hancock and more than five dozen other families in a claim against the owners of Sunset Mesa and the companies who are accused of buying the body parts. Few state laws provide any oversight. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. Chantal Reh. In 2020, authorities charged the two with mail fraud and illegal transportation of hazardous materials. GRAND JUNCTION A Colorado funeral home operator accused of illegally selling body parts and giving clients fake ashes has pleaded guilty to mail fraud in federal court. A few days later, she was able to pick up the cremains, but like E.W., Cavanagh received no paperwork. A funeral director who also works as a body broker could have a financial incentive to sell a body for its valuable parts rather than provide an inexpensive burial, for instance. The investigation of Kents funeral homes began in February after the sheriffs office received a complaint by a client regarding the handling of human remains. Nursing Home Under Investigation After Woman Declared Dead Found Breathing at Funeral Home The incident happened at the Water's Edge Rehab and Nursing Center in Port Jefferson, the. What You Need To Know. Both Reh and Cavanagh said they want to get the ashes analyzed at the University of Colorado to see if they actually belong to their babies. Megan Hess, 46, operated the Sunset Mesa funeral home in Montrose, Colorado, alongside a body-parts entity called Donor Services, where she undertook the grisly scheme, starting in 2010. Heads went for $500 and $250 for a knee prices at significantly discounted rates compared to other body brokers. Jacque Hampson spent a year working as Hesss personal assistant. These illegitimate businesses are buying and selling body parts just like anything off the shelf at Walmart, added Teselle. Other charges against Hess will be dropped under a plea agreement, the Sentinel said. Most brokers who sell body parts offer to cremate part of the donors body for free. Before he died in 2016, the 78-year-old retired contractor saved $200 on cremation by agreeing to pledge parts of his body to Donor Services. He has served as Lake County coroner since 2012 and was reelected to a four-year term in November 2018. In mid-March, Kent received a letter of admonition" from the Office of Funeral Home and Crematory Registration after unembalmed, unrefrigerated remains were found in the Gypsum funeral home over 24 hours after the person had died. Now the women wonder how many others might have had the same experience. Enter your email address to join 3,177 readers who subscribe to all Funeral Director articles. The indictment accuses Kent of allowing his wife to go out to death scenes as a deputy coroner, even though she took no oath and an appointment had not been filed with the county clerk, as required by law. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters. Some of those family members are now questioning if the services were held free of charge while Donor Services sent some of the remains (body parts) to clients for payments without the knowledge and consent of family members. Downard Funeral Home Under Investigation, ISU Involved There are many events that have unfolded over the past couple weeks involving Downard Funeral Home, some including Idaho State University (ISU). Email: newsroom@coloradosun.com Contact7 Chief Investigative Reporter Tony Kovaleski traveled to Montrose and talked to more than a half dozen family members now victims about what they describe as a scheme to profit from their pain. In February of 2018, Colorado regulators shut down the funeral home at the same time the FBI was investigating claims families did not receive the real cremains of their loved ones. The most expensive prices were for an upper torso that included a head and arms ($4,000) and the cost of an entire body was $5,000, according to the price list. You could hear the machine going, she told Kovaleski. Reuters could not independently verify this figure. Its sickening, said Hanson. Officials also found the "post-cremation remains" of 16 people, according . The back of the brochure featured the logo Donate Life, the national brand that promotes organ donation and is managed by Donate Life America, a nonprofit group. Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Drop us a note at tips@coloradosun.com. . No federal law prohibits the buying and selling of human body parts to be used in research and education. Further, the van was holding two other bodies that needed to be removed.. While Sunset Mesa legally is permitted to own and operate both businesses, Reuters found that there was no other active instance where a funeral home, crematory and body broker had the same owner and were in the same facility. She signed a contract with a Montrose funeral home to have his body cremated. Reuters provides business, financial, national and international news to professionals via desktop terminals, the world's media organizations, industry events and directly to consumers. On her cremation marketing website, a donor could simply select from a drop-down menu, fill out a few forms, click Add to Cart, and enter a credit card number. (REUTERS). A former Colorado funeral home owner has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on charges of fraud and selling body parts without permission. After contacting Hess in December about the content of the brochure, Dolin said Hess told the organ transplant group that the brochure in question was old and has not been used for some time.. To betray that help, in a way that the businesses here are alleged to have done, brings nothing but a lack of credibility to all funeral service professionals. There are no ethics there when you do that.. Be an organ donor, a slogan often used by organ transplant advocates. The federal case was triggered by a 2016-2018 Reuters investigative series about the sale of body parts in the United States, a virtually unregulated industry. Hess and Koch also shipped bodies and body parts that tested positive for, or belonged to people who died from, infectious diseases including Hepatitis B and C, and HIV, despite certifying to buyers that the remains were disease-free, authorities said. did not receive a contract for funeral services, and only received the cremains after several calls to Kent, the order states. I thought it was something that needs to be corrected," said state Senator Larry Crowder, one of the bills sponsors. The conflict of interest of having a side business in body parts just leads to problems. A Colorado funeral home is accused of victimizing families after claims that it secretly sold body parts in the hours after death. The investigation of Kents funeral homes began in February after the sheriffs office received a complaint by a client regarding the handling of human remains. An agent with the FBI has interviewed at least four former employees who worked for funeral director and body broker Megan Hess, seeking information about how she operates her businesses, the former workers told Reuters. Funeral homes in Leadville and Gypsum are under criminal investigation after authorities this month found an unrefrigerated body, bags of unlabeled cremains, an abandoned stillborn infant. [wpforms id=436 title=true description=true]. The reality of body brokers profiting from the sale of body parts has made national and international headlines following government raids in Arizona and Colorado in recent years. It only investigates a funeral home if a complaint is filed, he said. It was kind of creepy.. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. I didnt believe in depression until I lost my baby, Cavanagh said. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of Charles Lynch to pay them a last tribute. Jan 3 (Reuters) - A former Colorado funeral home owner was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for defrauding relatives of the dead by dissecting 560 corpses and selling body. She operated a funeral home, Sunset Mesa, and a body parts entity, Donor Services, from the same building in Montrose, Colorado. Connie Hansons sons body parts were also allegedly sold. First published on Wed 6 Jul 2022 10.36 EDT. At the time of publication, no charges had been filed against the coroner, though Colorado has suspended the business licenses for both funeral homes. She took orders for body parts via Hotmail, email records show. Kent also operates funeral homes in Silverthorne, Idaho Springs, Fairplay and Buena Vista. The surgical-training companies and other firms which bought the arms, legs, heads and torsos from Hess did not know they had been fraudulently obtained, prosecutors said. The Unaffiliated is our twice-weekly newsletter on Colorado politics and policy. You are not looking at the full disposition (of a body). The focus and extent of the federal probe into the Hess operation is unclear, and the FBI also declined to comment. Megan Hess, the owner of Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose, and her parents are now under investigation by the FBI. In Colorado and most other states, it also is legal for funeral homes to sell items recovered from dead bodies, such as gold dental work. The details of the plea agreement are unknown, but a trial for Hess' mother is still on track to proceed. The charges defray the cost of picking up the deceased, she said in the 2016 interview. On January 8, 2011, U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords and 18 others were shot during a constituent meeting held in a supermarket parking lot in Casas Adobes, Arizona, in the Tucson metropolitan area. Burg and Teselles law firm is currently suing body brokers in both Colorado and Arizona. Her 69-year-old mother, Shirley Koch, also pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 15 years. U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello on Tuesday sentenced Hess, 46, to 20 years in prison the maximum allowable for her role in a nearly decade-long scheme to sell body parts without the. "This is the most emotionally draining case I have ever experienced on the bench," U.S. District Judge Christine M. Arguello said during Tuesday's sentencing hearing in Grand Junction, Colorado. (Reuters) -A former Colorado funeral home owner was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison on Tuesday for defrauding relatives of the dead by dissecting 560 corpses and selling body parts. There, authorities also found dried bodily fluid on surgical equipment, the metal preparation table, and the floor. An indictment filed last week by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver alleges 43-year-old Megan Hess, of Sunset Mesa Funeral Directors and Donor Services, harvested body parts from hundreds of dead people without any authorization from their families. Email address: Colorado Funeral Home / Body Broker Continues Under Investigation, Acquisitions, buy-outs, creative ideas. She says Shirley Koch came to pick up his body. Family and friends can send flowers and condolences in memory of the loved one. As a result, Peck and his funeral home were required to pay a $2,500 fine and $5,000 in investigative costs and attorney fees. There are people and businesses who spend millions and millions of dollars," Teselle added, "trafficking in these body parts as if they were nothing more than cans of soup or loaves of bread., I was pretty shocked, said Jacque Hampson, a former employee of the Sunset Mesa Funeral Home in Montrose. A judge sentenced a Colorado funeral-home owner who carved up corpses and sold parts of them without families' permission to 20 years in prison on Tuesday, according to the Department of Justice. Her revised online biography cited her high school degree and a love of veterinary medicine.. A Colorado funeral home is under federal investigation over accusations it doubled as a body broker firm, buying and selling human body parts, a Reuters special report revealed Tuesday. Seeing how this chapter is opening up again is incredible, its unbelievable. SCI 4Q Revenue and Year End Revenue lower than comparables, Funeral Director Daily, The business of Funeral Care. The gruesome details of the case which authorities say included more than 500 victims drew international attention and shined a light on the . Records from the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies showthis was not the first time Kent has been in the crosshairs of state regulators. "No, I did not," Hancock responded. No such degree exists in the United States for morticians, veteran funeral directors say. Shannon and Staci Kent, 45, of Leadville were charged on Friday with attempted tampering with a deceased human body. Responding to the investigations and details reported out of Montrose, Colorado lawmakers could become the first in the country to pass a law making it illegal for funeral home or crematory owners to operate as a body broker. The brochure, provided to Reuters by Hess during the 2016 interview, continued this way: Every year, organ, eye and tissue transplants provide hope to tens of thousands of people suffering from disease, injury, trauma or blindness. found out the cremains contained ashes from an infant, but also long bone fragments of an older/larger adult individual and metal, according to the suspension order. felt they were too heavy to be those of a stillborn child, and submitted them for analysis. Golden Gate's owner denies all allegations. Colorado regulators shut Sunset Mesa down in February 2018, KMGH-TV reported. Kent has not been arrested in this latest incident and no charges have been filed, though the two funeral homes business licenses have been suspended by the state. Propel Funeral Partners makes acquisitions. Fo Sam Tabachnik is a roving reporter for The Denver Post, focusing on stories outside metro Denver. Fells called running such a multifaceted operation a new frontier., Through the attorney, Hess declined to comment for this story and didnt address questions about the FBI probe, her business practices, and the allegations by former employees. MILLERSVILLE, Pa. (WHTM) A Lancaster County funeral home and its director are facing formal disciplinary action and are under investigation by the state. Hancocks story started after her husband, Thomas, passed away. The judge ordered that Hess and Koch be sent to prison immediately.